The Russian Empire in the beginning of the
19th century was standing tall upon the European throne driving out
Napoleon from their country after France had conquered most of Europe.
The decisive victories of Poland, Sweden and Turkey made Russian empire
stand on top of the European Power bracket until the modernization of armies,
weapons and tactics swept through Europe. The
abolition of serfdom, new technologies and tactics used by the rest of the West
were just some of the reasons why Russian Army and Empire started to fall apart
in the late 19th century. First
came the issue of new technologies diffusion of the arms and weapons all over
Europe, it was very costly, time consuming but very efficient and resulted in
great improvement of weapons and armies of the Western Countries.
Russian Tsar and the government believed that the same army and weapons
that defeated Napoleon earlier in the century would still be efficient at this
time. The economy of the huge
Russian empire was not doing that well and the fact was that the tsar and the
government had to deal with so many problems they didn’t see the need to
improve the technology of their armies. The country was very backwards and
people liked the way things were going and didn’t really like rapid changes in
the way they live and work. After
the abolition of serfdom even greater problems arouse because of the fact that
these people were free now and will have to be paid like workers and not be
exploited like they were in the times before.
This would lead to a greater expense by the government in every aspect of
Russian live, the workers in all aspects of live will need higher wages and this
will lead to a economic problems for the Russian government and nation.
The great awakening of the Russian
military came after the defeat at the Crimean War in which Russian tsar and
generals finally realized how badly backwards their army is and how much
improvement they will need, in the words of Dimitri Miliutin " Unimportant.
Improvements in weapons now give a decide advantage to the most advanced
army. We became convinced of this
truth by the bitter experience of the last war.
Now we must honestly admit that we are materially behind other European
countries in our munitions and weapons" (Bradley).